Donovan sat at a table in the library with a clearly frustrated expression painted across his dark-skinned features as he stared at the contents of an English textbook placed on the large table directly in front of him. He flipped through the pages at a slow pace, reading through all the things on proper English, sentence structure, and other grammar-related things. The man read the text, processed the words, and knew what they meant individually, but for some reason he found himself incapable of understanding, or retaining, anything that he had read.

English had never been a strong subject for Donovan, though he spoke it fairly fluently enough to score well on the standardized test. But now, with working and his other subjects Donovan had cut out one of his classes heavily from his schedule and English had drawn the short straw on that, and now he was paying the price for slacking off on a class.

"Ugh," Donovan let out a grunt before saying to himself, "I just won't get this in time, the test is in a couple days and I haven't been able to get any work done." At this point the mutant banged his head against the table in frustration as he was at the threshold of just giving up.

School hit Rebecca like a pile of brick-like books, which was ironic considering she was carrying four of those books in her arms, trying to peek over the stack to find a suitable seat in the library.

Rebecca was an English major, and as such, she was less than pleased to be stuck in another math class. She understood why her high school experience had to be broad and comprehensive, but she was in college! Cambridge for goodness sake! Why could she not finally just narrow her sights on her subject.

This distaste was exactly why her math textbook was at the bottom of her book stack. Rebecca had more enjoyable studying to do, and she was going to do that first. There was reading to be done for Recent American Poetry and Irish Literature, and both of those subjects tickled her pink. Every time she opened a book and sat through a class, she found herself thinking, "Oh, Ah have tae try that in my next poem!" College was treating her well.

Besides stupid math.

In the busy library, there was a seat across from a man Rebecca could just barely see over her books. "Mind if Ah sit here?" she asked in her natural Scottish lilt.

Donovan had been hitting his head against the table when the red-haired girl approached him and asked if she could take a seat. The young man had recognized her accent as being from Scottland, and without thinking replied in his own Bronx accent, a voice that his mother had always tried to break but around other accents Donovan would occasionally slip, "Oh Sure, have a seat." In the statement he hit the beginning consonants really hard and nearly dropped the R in sure.

Quickly coughing, almost as if he had something in his throat a moment previous, "ugh, sorry, yes feel free." Donovan then said, in a much more neutral accent. It was fairly common-knowledge in the area that McCalaghan was a mutant, and as such people didn't often sit with him, so it was nice to get to see someone who didn't avoid him. Likely it was out of ignorance to the fact in, Donovan's mind, but he took what he could get.

He noted the Rebecca carried many more books than he, and figured she was probably a student too. Either that or very book-crazy. He then saw a peek at the bottom of her pile was a text that looked familiar, a math text similar to one he had in one of his math classes the previous year. Of course atop the pile were several books on literature, and this sparked a notion in Donovan's mind

"I hate to bother," he said softly, as to not disturb other patrons, "but I notice your math text is at the bottom? Is that a no particular order type of deal or are you avoiding it?" the mutant asked. Typically Donovan had a difficult time with girls, especially pretty ones like the one near him, but when Donovan set his mind he would go through with it every time.

Rebecca caught the young man's slip into a heavy accent that she recognized as one of the local New York tongues. Everyone told her that there were huge differences from borough to borough, but Rebecca was not good at picking up these nuances; New York was New York. (She got in trouble once by asking a Bostonian which part of New York he was from. That was a rather quick lesson to pick up.) When he "corrected" himself, she giggled. "It's fine; everyone has their own accents, right?"

Rebecca sat down, dropping the stack of books on the table with a loud thud. Now able to look at the young man, it was likely that he was another student, given what his appearance hinted toward his age. Rebecca smiled brightly to convey her thankfulness for the seat, hoping he was not a creep. It only took a dozen or so trips to the library to realize sitting near someone was always a gamble, even to a trusting girl like Rebecca.

The Scot grabbed her poetry book from the top of the pile and flipped it open, looking up when the man pointed out her bottom book. She smirked, his guess being spot on. "If Ah had a pit of fire, it'd be there." That should have properly suggested her opinions regarding her math class. "Ah'd gladly stick tae my poetry books given th' chance. What about you?"

It was certainly a big thing to a lot of New Yorkers about making sure you knew precisely which borough they were from. Donovan was one of the rare exceptions who preferred to not have people know, because he really didn't care. "I suppose so," Donovan replied, "just was raised to not use it." His mother always had been extremely picky about how her son spoke, and since the mutant was the only one around, he was the sole target of her overbearing nature. This reminded him that he'd need to pay his mother Dana a phone call later on.

The loud thud startled the man, making him jump a bit, creating a distinct clinking noise from his Catholic pendants. McCalaghan returned the smile when offered one in return, as it was the polite thing to do. Donovan rarely had to gamble, though, because most people didn't sit near him.

Donovan showed his own Language text to Rebecca, the thing that was at the center of his contempt at the moment. "This is mine, I would much rather tackle the math, though." The man didn't know what made it so, but he had always loved math. Probably because just about all equations had an answer, and no matter what there was a single way to go about solving most things and the answer was always the same if you went about it correctly.

Rebecca took a peek at the young man's book, realizing it was focusing on English and Grammar. Based on his claim, it would seem he was one of those Rebecca could not comprehend: math people. How could someone look at a collection of numbers and find that more exciting than dissecting a sonnet? In truth, Rebecca never liked to admit that poetry involved more numbers and patterns than people would assume: beats, meter, stressed and unstressed syllables; the counting was endless.

Rebecca flipped to her assigned reading. "Ah definitely dornt get why, bit if you need any English help, Ah'd gladly accept some number help."

Now that they were officially in conversation, it would have been impolite and improper to forgo introductions. There was something about not having a name to connect to a face that made socializing awkward. "Ah'm Rebecca," she offered, extending her hand.

It wasn't so much the numbers and equations that excited Donovan about Mathematics, but what the numbers could represent. With Math and Science, anything was possible, a prime example being that people never believed man would fly. But when Pilâtre de Rozier flew in the first free-flying balloon, it proved that anything was possible and that the figurative, and literal, skies were the limit. McCalaghan understood that literature was integral, and is where many of the ideas began, but he just didn't understand why he needed it. Possibly out of shame that while he had learned to read and speak, the man had never really learned to properly convey his words on paper, except in the formal of broken sentences and whatnot for notes.

In a playful, mock-evil, tone Donovan replied to her offer, "Oh these are no mere numbers, they just became your worst nightmare."

"Donovan" He responded to the introduction, doing the gentlemanly taking her hand and kissing her knuckle. His own were callused on the pads of his fingers, revealing that he played a string instrument. His grip was both gentle and firm at the same time. As he released Rebecca's hand he then looked down to the books and removed her own math from the pile and placed it next to his English text, "It will probably be much more quick to go over the math first, but it's your call"

Donovan was being rather kind in offering to help Rebecca with her work first, but she was the one who originally offered her assistance. It would only be right for Rebecca to provide her services first before receiving Donovan's aid. "Nae, that's fine. 'Sides, Ah would love tae put off looking at numbers a little longer." It was truth spoken in a humorous tone; Rebecca could gladly hold off her math work for another few hours.

With her metal sense, (combined with her sound sense hearing clacking,) Rebecca noticed the medallions around Donovan's neck. It was nice to meet a man of faith in a rather belief-devoid city. "By the by, Ah like your pendants."

Done with the compliment, Rebecca smiled and leaned closer to look over his book. "Sae what is it you're working on exactly?"

Donovan nodded in understanding as Rebecca stated that she didn't want to work with the numbers, he felt the exact same way about working with the words and such. But to be polite, he didn't bother to argue it and promptly brought out his own English textbook and opened it to where he was.

As he did so the young woman made a remark about Donovan's pendants, which somewhat confused him considering they were beneath his shirt. It was an odd occurrence, but the man let it go figuring all the clinking might have just simply given it away. "Thank you." He said politely in reply to the compliment, and went back to focusing on the work.

"Well, I can read and speak English, just my writing is somewhat..... Lacking" This had always been an embarrassing point for Donovan, and he didn't enjoy admitting he was technically illiterate.

Rebecca had been writing for the vast majority of her life for school, for pleasure, when she was bored, and when she was procrastinating. It was hard for her to imagine struggling with writing, but she knew that everyone was different and everyone excelled and struggled with different things, so she was not going to judge Donovan for having issues where she did not.

Rebecca got out of her chair and moved it to Donovan's side of the table, sitting next to him to get a better look at the book. It was from a lower-level English class, which made sense for a math boy. "Okay... how about you write a paragraph sae I can see what you struggle with? Jist write about anything, an' dornt be self conscious."

Maybe if Rebecca had a better idea about what Donovan had problems with (spelling, grammar, syntax,) she could help him more efficiently.

Donovan eventually let out a large sigh of exasperation as Rebecca asked him to write down a whole paragraph.

wen X is playced into an equation it can behave as literaly eny value. This is ofen noun as a variable which is what the universe is theoreticly filled with to an infinited degre at the point of it's creashunn. The magority were extreemly important. But some say their all important

This was potentially one of the greatest butcherings of the English tongue by an individual ever to enter a college campus. Really it was practically a miracle that the young man had managed to get into higher education, but he had relyed on an extremely high Math and Science score to boost his GPA. Donovan also took remedial English many times that had never really taken that allowed him to obtain his highschool diploma.

Donovan felt very stupid writing all this down, as he had never really had his lack of ability known by anyone aside from a teacher. As such the man was not comfortable showing to someone his own age.

Donovan seemed less than thrilled with Rebecca's request. After waiting patiently while he wrote out his paragraph until he handed the passage to her, she had a better understanding of his apprehension. Donovan's spelling was... not quite up to par. Truthfully, it was riddled with mistakes. After struggling to decipher what some words were meant to be, ("noun" as "known" took her a few seconds of contemplation,)

Rebecca was pleased to at least note that his grammar was not as bad as his spelling. Punctuation could be improved, but there were plenty of college kids who struggled with that anyway.

Now to handle the situation delicately. "You're grammar's nae too bad." It was wisest to lead off with a good note. "Tha's probably easier for you since you speak pretty proper."

And now, onto the real meat of the problem. "You're spelling needs a lot of work. It's nae all your fault; English as a language has loads of rules and breaks them all th' time." It was a truth any English major heard at some point: English is a messed up language, and it was always best to have learned it as a child when language learning was easiest. "Teaching the spelling stuff willnae be easy, bit if you'd like, Ah could study with you another time, too. Maybe even tutor, if you'd like," she added with a smile. She was no teacher, but she was always ready to help.

McCalaghan stared towards the ceiling as Rebecca read through the paragraph that he had just written out onto a piece of lined paper. The man tapped his fingers against the table, in a rather musical fashion, in an attempt to keep himself from going crazy at the wait for the terrible writing to be critiqued. Honest to god, some days Donovan didn't even know why he bothered to try with scholastic pursuits anymore.

As Grey went on to explain exactly she thought of what he wrote out, Donovan felt better to finally know exactly what he had been doing wrong. McCalaghan returned the smile as she offered to be somewhat of a tutor to Don in English, "Well it would be terrible of my English moved in on your Math-time, speakin' of, let's take a look at yours."

At this point the mutant began twirling a pencil between his fingers as he quietly waited in response, not really caring as to what would happen next.

Donovan responded well to constructive criticism, which was a great trait for someone she might end up coaching through English lessons. The problems he was facing would require more than an afternoon at their library table, so it was probably for the best that, for the moment, they switched their focus to assessing Rebecca's math woes.

"Alright, you're spared for the moment, boyo," she said with a smile. She handed him back his paper and looked through her book pile, drawing out her math text and her notebook.

She opened up to an early chapter, and the correlating page of numbers, letters and angry stick figures in her notebook. "Ah probably wouldnae hae much of an issue, bit my professor is terrible at explaining things for... th' math impaired."

Rebecca looked down at various problems she attempted to solve with concepts she did not totally understand. "Right now Ah'm trying tae figure out factoring. Ah know Ah need tae fit th' equation intae two parentheses, bit Lord knows how Ah get tae that point."

She placed the notebook between them and gave Donovan her best puppy dog eyes and pouty lips. "Help?" Maybe if she was lucky, Donovan could give her a better explanation than her senile professor.

Donovan had an easy time with criticism, considering his idea of an easy-going coach was an old sixty year-old boxer who would keep a kid in until past midnight to make him the best he could be. The constructive criticism seemed almost too nice to the big Irishman.

McCalaghan smiled back as she decided to "spare" the man further gramatical trial. As he took back his paper he crumpled the thing up and tossed it into his back that was on the table, saving the thing for later as a reminder. Now he would simply turn his full attention over to mathematics, a basic necessity for Physics, the thing he was extremely good at.

Donovan chuckled a little as she labeled herself as math impared, "well, I used to help other kids in school when they were desperate enough to ask ME for it." He then brought out a few extra mechanical pencils a notebook and his own physics and trigonometry texts. "But I assure you, I am gonna have a much easier time teaching you than your professor if yer' as math impared as you claim."

He laughed as she tried to pout, "while that is very cute, you might wanna divert some energy into the mad-math facts I'm about to spike to you," Now for the storm, "well really all you need to do is put the powers of the X's in order, from X squared to no X's at all. You then take the center number and figure out what adds up to the digit itself so x2 + 5x + 6 = 0, 0+5= 5, 1+4=5 and so on. You then do something similar to the 6, but rather than addition we use multiplication. When a set of numbers that are identical for both is found you make those both added to X on the other side, so x2 + 5x + 6 = (x+2)(x+3). We'll stop here so you can tell me if you're lost" naturally while Donovan was doing this he had been showing her each step in written form on his own paper, even occasionally drawing little cartoon characters into the pictures while he was al lengthy bits. This was they way his ma had done it so as not to lose a younger Donovan's interest and now it was just a terrible habit.